Intelligence
Part 1 — What is intelligence?
We’ve probably heard the story of the truck that was stuck in a factory. It was thought that this truck would be a huge success for the company, but unfortunately it was a few inches taller than its factory exit door. As a result, it couldn’t be brought out of the factory for showcasing. The engineers, brainstormed ideas of how to solve this problem and thought the best way was to remove the roof of the car, only for a cleaner to suggest that they should let some air out of the tires and then drive the truck out. The solution in itself is one that isn’t conventional but still solved the problem. The first time I heard this story, I was marveled at the level of intelligence the cleaner had displayed. This goes to show that intelligence is not entirely defined by one’s technical abilities which the engineers clearly had, much more than the cleaner.
Humans have classified themselves as ‘intelligent’ beings, but do you think we have the right to do so? We have developed various mechanisms, machines and systems that allow us to overcome and survive through many situations. One might argue that we owe this success to our physique which allows us to construct and perform actions that other animals can’t but that’s clearly not true and here’s why. There are other primates, like monkeys, that have a physique which also allows them to construct things, solve Rubik cubes and other puzzles. Some are even stronger than us and possess the physique to be better builders than us, but they aren’t. It’s clear that our dominance over these primates is due to something that is not attributed to the physical structure of the human being and that something is Intelligence. However, there are other animals which do not possess such a physique and it could be argued that they are more intelligent than humans. Such animals vary from predators, that plan sophisticated attacks on their prey, to birds like the crow that make hooks in order to take food from a deep tube their beaks can’t reach the bottom off. Could you think of such a solution if you were the animal?
Hearing all these, you ask — but what exactly is intelligence? The question has been debated for so long, to the point that, in attempt of defining intelligence, people have to add another word to it so as to communicate to others that what they defined is itself not the entirety of intelligence. One such word is Executive intelligence. It defines intelligence as one’s ability to perform tasks, have good relations with others and improve on oneself. On an extensive read into Executive intelligence, one finds out that the other two criteria in defining it — relating to others and improving oneself is a reflection of the first criteria — performing a task. It’s implied that if one can improve on oneself from past mistakes and also knows how to manage one’s relationship with others, then one can perform a task better.
Another such word is Emotional Intelligence. It defines intelligence as the ability of one to be aware of and to control one’s emotions. Again, an extensive read into emotional intelligence shows that its definition is on the basis that one who can be aware of and controls his emotions is likely to be more successful in performing a certain task or be a better worker. Even the IQ test is a test on how well a person can perform a task while challenging their spatial and cognitive reasoning.
At this point, it is quite clear that no matter how we define intelligence, the main thing is to explain how one person can perform a task better. In essence, I could then say if we have the same tools and I perform a task faster or better than you do, then I am more intelligent, right? But what if we don’t have the same tools? What if I can’t even have a tool? How does one even say a person is intelligent if the person is incapable of performing a task?
To answer all this questions, we first have to know that performing a task involves three basic steps — input, process and output. The input is the initial situation of the task we are to solve, just like the stuck truck. The output is the change we observe or action we perform on the input. The process between these two is therefore where intelligence resides. If we try to compare two people using different inputs, our results will always be biased and will result in an unfair comparison, hence the reason why we can’t know if crows are more intelligent than us. If a person can’t provide an output due a disability, we can’t determine if he is intelligent as there is nothing to observe. It’s analogous to asking a blind man what’s the colour of the sky. We can’t therefore judge if a person is intelligent if we can’t observe what he does. If there is no input, there is nothing for intelligence to act on (nothing to process) and therefore, since the person can’t act on anything, we also can’t know how intelligent the person is.
If intelligence is then measured by how well we perform tasks (process an input to provide an output), and there are different types of tasks, it would only make sense that there are different types of intelligence, Hence the problem in defining the term. This also implies that if one is seen to be intelligent in performing a certain type of task, that doesn’t mean he is as intelligent in performing another type of task. This leads us to the next topic of this series — Types of intelligence.